


TubaChristmas

by sunkelles



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe- High School, F/M, Holiday Sweaters, Jewish Pines Family, They live in Gravity Falls, Tuba Christmas, just go with it, mabifica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TubaChristmas: a special concert where a band composed only of sousaphones, tubas and euphoniums plays Christmas carols. </p>
<p>In which Dipper the sousaphone player is the Scrooge of Tuba Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TubaChristmas

**Author's Note:**

> Dipper lays sousaphone in his guide to the unexplained. 
> 
> Jewish pines twins and mabifica mentions are ahead, and of course candip

Dipper is standing up on a makeshift stage in the middle of the Gravity Falls Mall food court. He's wearing a pair of fuzzy reindeer ears with jingle bells attached, his blue, Hanukkah sweater and his sousaphone. Dipper is having a really bad day.

His bad day can be traced a lot of different places, but he thinks that it probably started over a year ago, when he and his counselor were planning out his schedule for senior year. He had a nice schedule planned out, with all of his required courses and even enough room for a film class and a free period. Then his advisor realized that Dipper hadn't taken the fine arts credit that was required to graduate. It turned out that his only options were freshman choir, and band. He would sooner stay in high school forever than take freshman choir as a senior, so he decided that band was his only option. He played sousaphone when he was younger, so it wouldn't be awful.

This led to the first semester of his senior year being full of lugging a sousaphone all over the state of Oregon, a ton of marching, and sweat. Lots of sweat.

There's a reason that Dipper didn't do band earlier. He didn't want to have to march with a sousaphone.

But December, he thought that band was going to calm down and stop being so hellish. Marching season was over, so there couldn't be anything worse than that, right? Except for his B grade in there, which he was frankly pissed about. He was going to loose his chance to be valedictorian because of band.

But then, the director approached him with an "extra credit" opportunity, which was a thinly veiled bribe to get more kids to play in this event for GFCC (Gravity Falls Community College). Apparently, there was a tradition where tubas, sousaphones, and euphoniums get together and play Christmas carols. And it was apparently a big thing? They did it all over the country, and the world. Dipper honestly doesn't feel too torn up over the fact that he's never heard of tuba Christmas before.

"So will you do it?" Miss Haynes asked as she adjusted her glasses.

"I don't know," he said. He really, really didn't want to.

"It'll be fun," she tells him, "we all wear ugly sweaters and Santa hats or reindeer antlers. And then we play all of the familiar Christmas carols."

"I'm Jewish," he said, in the hopes that she would feel embarrassed and apologize. And maybe give him the extra credit anyways. Dipper has done stupid Christmas stuff his whole life. He has never really minded all that much, but there was no way in the world that he was going to get all dressed up and play his stupid instrument for someone else's holiday.

"I guess you don't really want that A then," the director said. Dipper gritted his teeth, and reminded himself that hitting the director over the head with his sousaphone wouldn't solve any of his problems.

"Fine," he said, "I'll do it." Miss Haynes grinned at him knowingly, like a spider that has a web full of prey. He groaned.

As soon as Mabel heard about it, she insisted that she would knit him a Hanukkah sweater to wear. A beautiful, bright blue sweater with a menorah on it. She also decided that she was going to not only come, but bring Pacifica, Grenda, and Candy. Bringing Pacifica would be bad enough, because Mabel's girlfriend can come up with reasons to make fun of him out of thin air. But Candy too? That would be a low blow. Mabel knew about the crush, and he would much rather Candy not see him in reindeer antlers. He has always wanted Candy to at least get the impression that he's cool.

So the Saturday came, and so did Dipper's bad day. Instead of studying for his finals, he put on the sweater that Mabel knitted him and a pair of fluffy reindeer antlers. He couldn't believe he agreed to this. He didn't think that the A will be worth it.  
He was almost out the door when he heard Mabel shout, "Wait!"

"What is it?" He asked.

"We have to take a tuba Christmas selfie," she told him, with a face much too serious to accompany that phrase. Dipper looked at his sister, and noticed that she was wearing a bright green sweater with a tuba on it. A tuba with a Santa hat.

He couldn't believe that was a thing that actually happened. Mabel pulled out her phone, and they leaner in together for the photo. Dipper forced a smile, and he expected that this picture would be on his sister's Instagram within five minutes.

He drove to the mall, and met up with the rest of the group of poor schmucks that were suckered into tuba Christmas. The other people were smiling and laughing though, and we're all clad in even more tacky attire than he was. Dipper put his sousaphone together, and slowly realized that everyone else legitimately wanted to be there.

That was an odd thought. So now we are caught up to present time, with Dipper standing at the back of a makeshift stage, having a very bad day. They all ready their music, and Dipper spots Mabel and the gang at the back of the food court. They're eating soft pretzels and mall ice cream, and laughing at his misfortune. He really regrets telling Mabel about this.

The director walks up to his music stand, and faces his small brass band. He's wearing a Christmas sweater that has Santa and Rudolf playing golf on it. It looks much too childish to go with his greying hair.

"Everyone ready?" He mouths.

Dipper mouths back "no" just to be an asshole. The director doesn't notice, and about-faces to the audience.

"Merry tuba Christmas everyone!" Mr. Perry, the college director says. Dipper zones out as the guy speaks, but he's fairly sure that he hears the phrases "for over forty years" and "even in Hong Kong". He doesn't awaken from his daydream until the people around him start blaring an awful, in recognizable rendition of silent night.

They play more and more songs, and Dipper quickly realizes what's wrong. They sound bad. Scratch that. They sound awful. There's only six players from the college, him from the high school, and then three from the middle school. Apparently, none of them know how to stay on pitch, count, or blend, and they're all playing loud, low brass instruments. This is a really bad combination. He can see Candy, Grenda and Pacifica laughing in the back. Mabel's smiling at least. Mabel, however, is as musically inclined as he is and probably can't tell the difference. Thankfully, the program is over in about thirty minutes. They end with jingle bells, but he's not sure that audience would know they were playing jingle bells if the director didn't tell them.

Then, the program finally ends. People still applaud. It's soft, polite rather than passionate, but Dipper doesn't care. He just wants to get out of here. He puts his music away as quickly as he can manage. Then, he nearly runs over to his case. He opens it up, and then takes the damn horn off. He slides the mouthpiece off of it, then puts that away first. Then he shoves the horn inside and closes up the case, grateful that he's finally done with this. Then he looks up, and he sees Candy Chiu in front of him. His heart does an unanticipated back handspring. She's put her long, black hair up in a messy bun, and she has a candy-cane colored scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Hi, Candy," he says, trying to lean against his case. He thinks that it will look cool, but instead he ends up slipping and falling into the railing. Candy laughs, and asks, "are you alright?"

"Yeah!" He says, too enthusiastically, "of course? Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you just fell?" Candy suggests.

"I was kind of hoping that you didn't see that," he admits. Candy laughs at that too, and doesn't tease him further. Dipper appreciates that a lot.

"You sounded good," Candy says.

"Really?" Dipper asks skeptically.

"No," Candy says honestly. They both laugh at that.

"I couldn't tell what you were supposed to be playing half the time," she admits.

"Yeah," Dipper says, "I think if I didn't have the music in front of me, I wouldn't have been able to either." Was that clever? Or funny? Maybe it was just stupid, he wonders anxiously. Candy's not laughing, or talking. Neither of them is talking, and Dipper realizes that's either a really good or an awful sign. He laughs nervously to break it.

"Do you like the Hanukkah sweater?" He asks, trying to break the awkwardness.

"It looks cute," Candy says, and then she blushes, bright red.

"You look cute too," she says, somehow sounding both nervous and confident. Dipper can feel his face turn scarlet. He wishes that he had a clever line to respond with, but his voice has flown South for the winter. Candy giggles as she turns away from him, her red and white striped scarf flowing behind her.

Candy Chiu is really, really cute, but she thinks that he's cute too. Dipper thinks that he might have a chance after all. Maybe this didn't kill his chances, but enhance them instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry tuba Christmas to all and to all a good night!


End file.
